The Misinterpellated Subject
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notes Introduction 1 When I taught this text to my class in the Kent Summer School for Critical Theory, it was suggested that all the diﬀ er ent Abrahams in the parable are all aspects of the one “real” Abraham that God intended to call, that the diversity of responses represented the diverse aspects of Abraham’s interior life even as one privileged part of him did just what the “real” Abraham was supposed to do. 2 Kafka, “Abraham,” 40 (German), 41 (En glish). 3 Kafka, “Abraham,” 41. 4 Kafka, “Abraham,” 43. 5 Kafka, “Abraham,” 43. 6 Kafka, “Abraham,” 43–45. 7 In this regard, I think that whereas the move from liberalism to neoliberal- ism is dramatic and critical, in terms of misinterpellation at least, what is true for the historical practice of liberalism is just as true for neoliberalism. If, as Wendy Brown argues, neoliberalism has made a new homo economicus, this subject too is a form of interpellation and, as such, is similarly subject to misinterpellation. See Brown, Undoing the Demos. 8 This term, much beloved by economic conservatives, was often used by Herbert Spencer and later popu lar ized by Margaret Thatcher. More recently, Donald Trump has a newer version of tina; he constantly repeats “ there is no choice” as if the repetition itself were a basis for removing any chance of thinking or acting diﬀerently than he does. 9 Sarah Burgess suggested something further too: that the structure of address itself, that is the form of the claims being made, might themselves contain some radical potential. 10 I am grateful to Sarah Burgess for the idea of acting “as if.” 11 I owe Bonnie Honig this insight and also the idea of this mode of reading serving as another version of Deleuze and Guattari’s “minor lit er a ture.” 12 In The Practice of Everyday Life, a book that I see as being highly related to Scott’s work, Michel de Certeau discusses “la perruque” (the wig) which is an action